Editorial

Citation

Wilson, H.C. (2002), "Editorial", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 11 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2002.07311eaa.001

Editorial

Whether global warming is real or myth is not the question. The weather patterns are changing. Here in the UK this is the wettest summer I can recall for many, many years. In my twilight years memories do fade and are probably coloured by good memories of youth, but I need convincing that the weather is just the same as it was over 50 years ago. Central Europe is under a feet of water. Denizens of major European cities are being evacuated from their homes. I cannot remember that from my youth. Perhaps it did happen but was not considered newsworthy at the time.

What does concern me is the fact that we still have to evacuate people from their homes because of lack of adequate flood mitigation planning. Here in the UK, despite recent floods over the past few winters, people living on floodplains are experiencing more floods from summer storms after only recently returning to their newly redecorated homes which were flooded in the winter two years ago. I appreciate that flood defence systems are major civil engineering works and do not appear overnight. But, after two years, I would expect something to have been done. I cannot help feeling that politicians are deluded by the fact that some of these floods are rated as one in 50 or one in a 100 years, and since it happened this year they have plenty of time to put flood defences in later on.

Well, sorry people, it does not work that way. The mathematics is not that simplistic.

Floodplains are called "floodplains" because they flood in bad weather. It is nature's way of dealing with large quantities of water. If we build houses on these then we risk the lives of the occupants of those houses. Insurance companies have quickly come to that conclusion, and it is now virtually impossible to buy insurance for buildings on floodplains with a recent history of flooding, and if the insurance companies are turning away business then there is a problem. What do they know that we do not know?

However, this attitude seen time and time again, does not just concern flood defences. This happens with air disasters, rail disasters, dam bursts; in fact anything that we as humans create that alters the environment in some way.

One day, politicians will start to insist that safety planning measures are put in place before the project begins, but I doubt if I will live long enough to see that being achieved.

Henry C. Wilson